Air beam structures must be tethered to a support surface or the ground in order to fix them in place. Current tether systems and the air beam structures are vulnerable to pressure waves, such as hurricane force winds or explosion/blast pressure waves, as well as flying debris and small arms fire and other projectiles.
Frag walls protect personnel and equipment from projectiles such as small arms fire, and flying projectiles.
WO/1990/12160 by Heselden, titled Improvements Relating to Building and Shoring Blocks, is described in the abstract (with reference numerals removed) as the invention provides that wire mesh cage structures are used to provide structural blocks usable in building, shoring, walls and the like. The cage is lined with a geotextile fibrous material which allows the passage therethrough of water, but not particulate material such as cement, sand aggregate which are used as materials for filling the cage. The invention discloses novel forms of cage structure and also that the finished blocks can be coated with curable synthetic resin to conceal the mesh and provide a decorative surface finish.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,333,970 (Heselden), U.S. Pat. No. 7,789,592 (Heselden), and US 20100064627 (Heselden) may also form background of the invention.
A commercial product available from HESCO is depicted at:
http://www.hesco.com/prod_con.html
http://www.army-technology.com/contractors/infrastructure/hesco/
The HESCO product relies on wire mesh with fabric to stop fill from pouring out between mesh, and provides ballistic resistance with a mass of fill which can result in an increased logistic fill cost in resources, time, and money, and cannot be practically relocated.
WO/2008/037972 by Milton et al. titled Cellular Confinement Systems, is described in the abstract (with reference numerals removed) as a cellular confinement system for soil, sand or other filler material comprises a number of sub-assemblies each made up of a plurality of interconnected open cells of fabric material. The sub-assemblies are stackable one on top of the other to provide a structure having at least one generally vertical side or end wall. The system further comprises sealing means such as one or more skirt portion(s) which are arranged between vertically juxtaposed sub-assemblies in use. The skirt portions substantially prevent or minimise the escape of finer aggregate material from between the stacked sub-assemblies.
A commercial product DefenCell™ is depicted at:
http://www.defencell.com/
It is desirable to provide a new tether system, and frag wall, which better secures and protects air beam structures.